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Looking Glass Redux

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Back in April of this year I said some pretty discouraging words about the future prospects of this country.  The conceit I pushed in that post involved some of the statements to be found in the Alice in Wonderland stories.  All in all, I think the points I made and the insane statements by the inhabitants of Wonderland matched up pretty well.  Bravo photog!

Well, current events haven’t overthrown my feelings of doom and gloom over the unprecedented outrages that the Left has unleashed while performing their hostile takeover of the United States.  Their willingness to use the Department of Justice and kangaroo courts to imprison their adversaries is proceeding at full speed and now they’ve even indicted a former president in their determination to eliminate their competition in the 2024 Presidential election.  So, the madness continues unabated.

But far from sanity returning, the madness is reaching new heights.  It’s as if the Wonderland characters have broken through to a new level where even they are shocked by what’s going on.

This week we were witness to the spectacle of the Washington Post declaring that their own new poll of over a thousand voters that showed Trump ahead of Biden by ten points (52 percent to 42 percent) couldn’t possibly be true.  It’s as if the Mad Hatter asked his associates a question and then found the answer too crazy for even him to believe!

Now don’t get me wrong.  I don’t mean that those poll results mean anything about the Left losing control over the levers of power in Washington.  Election fraud is now an exact science and the ballots for November 2024 are probably being printed up right now to save time.

What I am saying is that the combination of banana republic political tactics and the incompetence that this administration has demonstrated with respect to energy policy, economic management, fiscal policy and foreign policy has shocked the American public.  Combined with the obvious deterioration of Joe Biden’s physical and mental abilities this has destroyed the country’s confidence in his administration.  I’m not surprised by the poll’s result.  In fact, based on the panic that has set in, across the Democrat controlled media, I think this poll is being used to convince everyone on the Left that Biden must bow out of the 2024 race immediately.

It has been opined by several people that I talk to, that the recent indictment of Senator Menendez of New Jersey for taking bribes is really a message to Biden that the FBI could easily turn on him if he doesn’t drop out right away.  That doesn’t sound impossible to me.  Something drastic like this might be the only thing that could force Biden to drop out right away.  And that would allow the Democrats the time needed to find primary candidates to replace him.

And we’re still a year and more before the election.  Based on what’s going on with food and gas prices and the current state of the Ukraine War I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that things may get much, much worse over the course of the next year.

So, what will 2024 look like?

The economy looks problematic.  Inflation is stubbornly high and the only thing that could bring it down is an even worse prospect, recession.  So, the administration will be blamed for the economic problems.  And the Ukraine War looks to be headed into a slow grinding quagmire.  And the runaway crime in the nation’s major cities keeps getting more outrageous.  Every week provides video of horrific violence or large-scale looting in the various downtowns.  Add to this the investigations of Joe Biden on allegations of influence peddling associated with Hunter Biden’s “business ventures” and you have a perfect storm of voter discontent.

Now none of this is news.  And the people counting (and printing) the ballots don’t have to worry about things like unpopularity of the candidate.  They just have to make sure enough fake ballots are printed.  But something new has been added to the mix.

Cynicism has gotten the upper hand.  The majority of Independents and Republicans now say that 2020 was a fraud.  That’s a new thing.  Most people now think they were misled by the government about COVID, the vaccines and the lockdowns.  That’s a new thing.  A large majority of Americans think Joe Biden is a terrible president.  That is new.  A lot of people think the government is lying about the extent of inflation and the health of the economy.  That’s new.

Pretty soon the majority of Americans will think that everything the government tells them is a lie.  That’s a disaster for the Democrats.

This is all a new situation.  For the most part, the American people have believed that the federal government was competent to carry out its duties.  Social Security checks go out on time, the mail gets delivered and the armed forces protects us from foreign enemies.  Well, the southern border is overflowing with narcotrafficantes, inflation is eating away at paychecks, the elections are fake and the FBI arrests grandmothers for protesting at school board meetings.

The anger and frustration are growing.  And if another presidential election gets stolen, I think we’ll be into a different place where the old ways of doing things no longer pertain.  Even the Mad Hatters in Washington will be afraid of what they see in that Looking Glass.

07AUG2023 – OCF Update

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I’ll be out and about this morning.  I must venture outside of Dunwich’s accursed borders.  Like everyone else I’m a creature of circumstance and must get some things done.  But I’ll be back to work this afternoon and I’m sure to provide brilliance and mirth aplenty when I reapply my shoulder to the wheel and my nose to the grindstone.

In the meantime I provide this classic tune for your listening pleasure.

If It’s Not One Thing It’s Another

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Here in Dunwich, there are only two seasons; Winter and July.  So now in the first few days of winter there is a nostalgic feeling for the summer that was.  And we exchange stories about how one day it stopped raining for several hours and light appeared in the sky.  And we named that light, “the sun” and we danced around pointing at it and declaring it a miracle.  It’s good to celebrate the good times in our lives.

Today Camera Girl was purging the kitchen cabinets of old food stuffs.  And it made me sad.  There was a whole package of mounds bars that I really like but I forgot to eat any of them because I was on a diet.  And now just because of some fake expiration date she’s gonna chuck them.  Most unfair.

Back last year before Christmas I told her I wanted some traditional holiday treats that I remembered from my childhood.  I said I wanted chestnuts roasted on an open fire (or in the oven).  And dried figs.  This really annoyed her because she said this was “a stupid idea.”  Now she says that a lot about my ideas so I don’t pay attention when she says it.  After I whined on about having these things for a while, she rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders and added them to her Christmas food list.

On Christmas Eve she handed me a pan of chestnuts and told me to cut Xs in them with a very sharp but poorly designed knife she kept for just such an occasion.  And after cutting my thumb several times and her preparing and cooking these delicacies, every last one of them turned out to be rotten.  And when I tried one of the figs, I suddenly remembered why they were always left over after Christmas.  It’s literally like chewing on vulcanized rubber.

So, today, seven months later these same figs are going to be donated to the flock of turkeys and the murder of crows that Camera Girl attracts to her bird feeding area.  Now, I’m no fan of these avian moochers that live off of my hard-earned dollars but even I feel pangs of guilt about what might happen if one of these neo-dinosaurs manages to swallow any of these figs.  Besides the obvious risk of bowel obstruction and subsequent agonizing death, there is the very real risk of radical mutation.

Anyone who has watched as many radioactive mutation movies as I have knows what happens when you combine backyard wildlife with atomic energy.  And nobody is going to tell me that those figs aren’t some kind of atomic mutation gone terribly wrong.  They’re probably a product of Kazakhstan and were the result of fallout being used as insecticide.

Well anyway, I tried to warn her.  And when she ignored me, I went outside and spoke directly to the crows.  I warned them.  More than once.  Of course, I didn’t bother with the turkeys.  They’re idiots.  But the crows are intelligent.  I only hope they believed me.  Otherwise within a week; or at most two, there will be sixty-foot-tall crows lurching around those bird feeders.  And two-hundred-foot-tall turkeys too.  And let’s be honest.  I’ve always been a little unfriendly toward these flying rats.  With the odd pebble chucked now and then and the unkind epithet thrown from time to time I’m not exactly on their nice list if you catch my drift.

Now Camera Girl has nothing to fear.  She’s a regular St. Francis of Assisi to the local wildlife and they practically work for her.  But me, not so much.  I’ve been considering my options.  I think my best bet is to make some kind of crow suit.  Since they’ll be so big, I can hope that maybe they won’t be able to tell that it’s fake.  I think I can imitate the caws and squawks that they make.  The only thing is they might not believe that a crow can drive a car.  Or cut the lawn.  And they may think it’s suspicious that I never fly.  But maybe if I make believe that one of my “wings” is broken maybe that will work.  The other problem is they may think I’m a hatchling and carry me back to their gigantic nest.  Would I be forced to subsist on road kill that they provide me?

So, you can see I live in fear.  My only other option is to go out to the bird feeder and eat one of the figs myself and become the Amazing Colossal photographer.  It would be a horrible existence.  I’d have to turn an old circus tent into a loin cloth and it’s a cinch I’d always be banging my head on bridge overpasses.  But I guess it’d be better than to end up eaten by a giant turkey.  So that’s my plan.

Of course, I could just do nothing and hope that none of that stuff will happen.

Hmmm.

You know what, never mind.

Asking the Hard Questions

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I watched Tucker Carlson’s interview of Mike Pence in Iowa.  It was extremely hard to watch.  In fact, I turned it off more than a few times because it was just too painful to watch this man say one stupid thing after another.  But stupid doesn’t really capture it.  It was as if he were lying and yet unaware of just how poorly he was lying.  When he talked about the 2020 election, he said that the voting irregularities would have had no impact on the outcome of the election.  And then he claimed that changes that have been instituted have strengthened election integrity.  I refuse to believe he’s that stupid.  I think he’s just lying and when he makes his case that’s exactly what it seems to be, a very poor liar.  When Tucker presses him on the various weak points in his story it’s like a little kid who has been caught doing something wrong and you ask him about it and you can almost see the wheels turning as he makes up a pathetic story that is patently absurd.

And then came the coup de grace.  While Pence is complaining about Joe Biden not getting Abrams tanks to Ukraine fast enough, Tucker asks whether with all the terrible problems that now plague our country; crime, drugs, violence, inflation; shouldn’t Pence be more worried about those things than Ukraine’s access to more American weapons.  And Pence’s answer was, “It’s not my concern, it’s not my concern.”  Now he tried to bury this answer by claiming that as president he’d handle both domestic and foreign policy issues simultaneously.  But all that anyone will ever remember is that he said that crime and homelessness and suicide and fentanyl overdoses and inflation were not his concern.

Well, Mike Pence will never be the Republican candidate for president.  My question is, with his breathtakingly awful communication skills, how was he ever a successful politician?  I’m aware that being vice president doesn’t require much in the way of talent.  But he did manage to become the governor of Indiana.  Is the bar that low in Indiana that a man without any discernible rhetorical abilities could become governor?  I’m going to give Pence the benefit of the doubt and that he used to be a very honest man and that in Indiana an honest man can accomplish a lot.  And that what we see now is what happens when a simple man is thrown into the cesspool that is Washington DC and tries to swim with the rats there.  Inevitably he gets eaten alive.

I watched Tucker’s interviews with the other candidates too.  Asa Hutchinson was equally hopeless as Carlson hammered him over his veto of a ban on pediatric transitioning and also on his tepid response to closing the southern border to drugs and illegal immigration.  So, what I see is that Tucker is acting as the voice of the normal Americans who are fed up with the GOP establishment candidates.  What he is doing is preventing the candidates from giving their lame rah-rah speeches and instead addressing the very painful fact that they don’t have solutions for the most pressing problems in America today.  In fact, he exposes the fact that they want to make believe that these problems don’t exist.  Or if they aren’t allowed to ignore them, then they just handwave them away as, “We’ll put our top men on that.”

Mike Pence is hopeless.  Asa Hutchinson is hopeless.  Nikki Haley is hopeless.  But even the candidates who make some sense like DeSantis and Trump can’t answer the most important question, “What are we gonna do if and probably when the Democrats steal the election in 2024?  That’s what we should be talking about with the men who want to be president.  And they should be talking to the red state governors about the contingencies that they should already be putting in place.  We’ve been occupied for over three years now by a rogue regime.  Enormous damage has already been done.  Taking concrete steps to begin reversing the damage and protecting people is long overdue.

So, good for Tucker for asking some hard questions.  But I think the harder questions remain to be answered.  That’s the debate that still needs to take place.  Maybe Tucker can work on that.

Atilla’s Court

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As I sit here putting pen to page, or whatever the paperless equivalent is now called, I am pleased to be reaching out across this huge continent, and even larger planet to the few like-minded individuals that have found their way here over the last few years.  I have a few readers in East Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa and even a South American from time to time.  And of course, I have readers in other parts of North America; several in Canada and even one or two in Mexico.  But the bulk of my readers and almost all of my commenters live in America.  And that’s because I am an American.  What I write about is my thoughts and feelings as I live through the dismantling of the American dream.

Because that’s what it is.  To fight World War II the Federal Government and Corporate America formed an alliance to marshal the resources needed to defeat Germany and Japan.  But more importantly this alliance made a deal with the American people.  In exchange for them sending all of their sons into the meat grinder they promised to supercharge the economy and build a shiny new America full of interstate highways, technological wonders, college degrees and most importantly jobs.  And something else was implied.  It was understood that this alliance of government and business had as its highest priority the welfare of the American people.  Sure, we might have a Marshall Plan for Europe and charity for the third world but when push came to shove their main focus was making sure blue-collar workers in the industrial heartland could afford to put a roof over the heads of their children and food on the table.

And for about twenty-five years it seemed that indeed, the people in Washington made it their business to oversee an economy that did just that.  But somewhere in the 1970s that began to change.  Maybe it was the Cold War or the oil crisis but from that point on it seemed like the lives and livelihood of the middle and working classes became expendable chips in the high stakes games that the rich and the powerful played in Washington.  That deal they made in 1941 has expired.  The IOUs they wrote are now worthless.

And it’s worse than that.  Now they’re making believe they’ve never even heard of us. “Americans?  You must mean the “Old Americans.”  Those racist, transphobes that clutter up the landscape that we want to fill up with “New Americans.”  Haven’t you people died off yet.  We’ve given you enough opioids and scorn to do the job.  What are you waiting for?”

But we’re still here.  And we still remember the deal they made.  And the funny thing is we know that someday they’ll remember that they need us to fight their wars or solve their technical problems or cure their diseases.  But will we still be here?  Because eventually people who aren’t wanted leave.  And they go where they are needed.  Maybe it’ll be Eastern Europe or South America or East Asia or somewhere completely unexpected.  But the way things are going it probably won’t be the United States.  This country has retreated into a contracting pessimism.  We must use less energy, less food, less money, less space, less life.  We will have fewer children, fewer opportunities and fewer reasons to want to live.

Now maybe, possibly we’ll get the upper hand again and hold our leaders in government and industry accountable.  That would be an outcome, much to be desired.  But the record of the last couple of decades doesn’t give me much hope of that.  Those in charge are in almost complete control.  Sure, there are places like Florida that are still putting up a good fight and have been taking back local control from the oligarchs.  I wish them all the success they can obtain.  Maybe they can duplicate that success in an expanding circle of red states that can demand a federalist solution to the Democrat monopoly on federal power that we are living through.  And maybe those red states can assume responsibility for those IOUs that the feds reneged on.  But once again. I’m not holding my breath.

So that’s where it stands.  I feel like one of the Greek renegades who went to work for Atilla the Hun back in 450 A.D. when the historian Priscus was negotiating for the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II to avoid the sack of the Danube provinces.  The renegade still remembers the myth of the Roman Empire he was taught as a boy; a land of justice and prosperity.  But then the reality of crushing taxes, omnipresent incompetent bureaucrats and hypocritical application of the law courts against the common man are remembered and reveal the myth to be a pathetic joke.

Of course, Rome lasted, nominally, for five hundred years after it ceased to be a republic.  Maybe there is no escape from the Global American Empire.  Well, that’s something to chronicle too.  And that’s what I do in my small way.  And also, I give people a cyber space to come to when they want to make a point or share an insight.  So, I’ll maintain my outpost and report what I see and think.  You do your part and tell me what you see and think too.  And spread the word if you know any folks who would fit in here.

Florida Law Has Illegal Aliens Leaving Florida

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New laws that Governor DeSantis has signed have begun to funnel illegal aliens out of Florida.  Focusing on things like the driver’s licenses that other states issue to illegal aliens, to the social services used at hospitals the bill seeks to identify illegal aliens and punish those who employ them and allow them to stay in the country illegally.

“It is part of a sweeping immigration bill signed by Republican Florida governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis back in May that is prompting many to leave the state.

The run-up to the new law has sparked protests by immigrant workers, from those in the tourism and hospitality industry, to those who work in agricultural fields.

“We are hearing people are starting to leave,” Yvette Cruz with the Farmworkers Association of Florida told CBS News of reports of migrant workers abandoning fields and construction projects. “We’re just gonna keep seeing that more as the law will take effect.”

The law also includes harsh penalties for those who try and hire or transport undocumented migrants, which critics say can include family members.

It also requires hospitals that receive Medicaid funds to ask for a patient’s immigration status.

DeSantis claims the legislation is needed due to what he considers the Biden’s administration’s failure to secure the border.

“At the end of the day, you wouldn’t have the illegal immigration problem if you didn’t have a lot of people who were facilitating this in our country,” DeSantis recently said during a campaign rally.”

Good work Florida, good work DeSantis.

A Topical Quote for This Fourth of July

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I agree with this.  One of the few pleasant surprises of the last decade is Musk’s purchase of Twitter.  And as for the Orwell quote, the fraud is now well exposed.

 

28JUN2023 – Avoiding the Pitfalls

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One thing that is certain.  It’s more than high time we stop making believe that we will restore things back to normalcy in America anytime soon.  We will not be living in a country where a working majority of the voters want life to be like it was in the 1950s or even the 1980s.  Those attitudes and ways of life have been replaced by social values and practices such as same sex marriage, affirmative action and feminism.  If, someday, a reaction to these things came about then maybe we could return to a time where we all could complacently trust in the public schools and the federal government to perform their roles in providing us with the services that we expect.  But as Dorothy famously stated, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”  So, let’s move on.

Okay, glass half full.  Going forward we get to decide how we deal with Big Brother.  So, the government is working against you.  Take that as a given.  Also, a given, the current state of government surveillance is technically quite impressive.  They have access to everything you write and even a lot of what you say and, heaven help us, they can even figure out a lot of what you think.  So that’s bad.  But on the good side, they’re mostly not that bright.  So, if you don’t hurl yourself into every pit trap and snare that they’ve very clearly set up for you it should be relatively simple to avoid being dragged off to the gulag, for the most part.

And that’s great news!  There are all kinds of great things that have been created here in the United States.  Enjoying a more or less first world infrastructure and economy is a major advantage.  And North America is a majestic place.  The only trick is to avoid the Leftists that infest it and make life horrific.  So, that’s what we need to do.  You need to organize your life to avoid the institutions and limitations that the Left has put in place.  First and foremost, you have to protect your children from the school system.  And that’s a big effort.  Private school is very expensive and homeschooling is equally difficult for most people.  Another choice is moving to a jurisdiction that has school choice or somehow still has a non-leftist school environment.  But it is totally necessary to address.  And you have to educate your children about the realities of life in the new America.  You have to give them “the talk.”

What about woke corporations?  How do you avoid working for them?  Well, maybe you can.  Tradesmen don’t have to worry about this.  They can be self-employed or work for small businesses that fly under the woke radar.  And then there is the tactic of working clandestinely inside of a woke corporation without exposing your true colors.  Admittedly that is a risky plan and it could backfire.   After all things could become very difficult with respect to the woke environment especially if you get into the higher echelons and your personal life might come in contact with the crazier types where you work.  You might become exposed as a normal person and that could lead to you being expelled from “the body.”  The financial fallout from something like that could be catastrophic, especially if you have kids in college and other very expensive commitments.  So, working for a woke corporations is a very tricky proposition for people on the Right.

And then there’s the question of where you live.  Ideally you live in a scarlet Red State and far, far away from any city awash in crime.  Of course, for some of us this is extremely difficult because of personal and family circumstances.  If you don’t have the luxury of relocating then once again, you’ll have to do the best you can to minimizing the danger of living in a lawless region.  At the very least live as far as you can from these danger zones by putting a long commute between where you have to work and where your family lives.

And finally, one of the most important considerations for living successfully inside of occupied territory is locating and cultivating the company of like-minded people as your friends and associates.  And this means actual neighbors and also people in cyberspace.  Both are important and both provide an aspect of support that will make life more rewarding.

So instead of waiting for the glorious revolution when the Leftists will be perp walked on their way to Gitmo start living in the here and now.  Take the reasonable precautions and develop your environment regardless of whether you’re in rural Florida or San Francisco, California.  Now maybe finding another country to live in, like Hungary might seem like a better solution.  Personally, I’m evaluating that option myself.  But that’s an enormous change and almost no one is ready to go that far.  Yet.

But definitely don’t let the horror of the Left destroy your life.  Think rationally about their areas of control and how to circumvent their influence.  I think you’ll find there are ways to endure and even thrive in this brave new world.

The Progressive Coalition Starts to Unravel

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Hamtramck, Michigan is a majority Muslim city near Detroit.  When the city government became majority Muslim  in 2016 the liberal white population there cheered.  But things haven’t gone as well as the white residence had hoped.  Recently the city council voted the banning of pride flags from city property and the liberal minority feels betrayed.

Well, welcome to planet Earth where Muslims aren’t big fans of the rainbow coalition taking too big an interest in their children.

“There’s a sense of betrayal,” said the former Hamtramck mayor Karen Majewski, who is Polish American. “We supported you when you were threatened, and now our rights are threatened, and you’re the one doing the threatening.

After several years of diversity on the council, some see irony in an all-male, Muslim elected government that does not reflect the city’s makeup.

…

Their talking points mirror those made elsewhere: some Hamtramck Muslims say they simply want to protect children, and gay people should “keep it in their home”.”

This mirrors similar fault lines that show up between Latinos and the various cohorts of the queer coalition.

 

 

Betelgeuse to Provide Fireworks for My Grandchildren to See (Maybe Me?)

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Some astro-physicists have calculated that the bright red giant star Betelgeuse in the shoulder of Orion will probably reach its supernova event within a few decades.

And I quote:

“CONCLUSION
We have found carbon-burning models that excite the radial fundamental mode, as well as the first, second, and third overtones. The
periods excited pulsation modes agree with periods of 2190, 417,
230, and 185 d that had been detected in Betelgeuse. On the HR diagram, these models are located within the allowed range of effective
temperature and luminosity of Betelgeuse. Beginning with a mass
of 19 𝑀⊙ at ZAMS (with a rotation velocity of 0.2 or 0.4 𝑣crit), the
models lose significant mass mainly in the core-He burning stage to
MNRAS 000, 1–11 (2023)
Pulsations of Betelgeuse 7
have a mass of 11 ∼ 12 𝑀⊙ in the core carbon-burning stage. A large
radius of about 1300 𝑅⊙ (needed for the long-period fundamental
mode) is supported by interferometric measurements of the angular
diameter combined with the distance. We conclude that Betelgeuse
should currently be in a late phase (or near the end) of the core carbon burning. After carbon is exhausted in the core, a core-collapse
leading to a supernova explosion is expected in a few tens (of) years.”

Note that last line, IN A FEW TENS OF YEARS.

So even an old guy like me may live to see a close supernova in the sky.  That’s pretty exciting.  Apparently Betelgeuse has reached the stage where it is fusing carbon into magnesium and based on the pulsations in the size and brightness of the star, it’s about to run out of carbon.  Since it’s not big enough to go through another higher round of fusion it’s going to collapse into a neutron star via an incredibly violent supernova.  It will be as bright as the half moon and will be seen even during the day.  Sounds pretty exciting.